the little lilac bird

21 - 🇵🇭 - he/she

[oisin-the-first]

i love when sofia does that adorable thing where she kinda copies the little idiosyncrasies of the people around her it's so cute

(one of my favorite examples is when she meets aunt tilly for the first time and starts replicating the thing where she jumps in the air and kicks her feet)

[oisin-the-first]

a snippet of a fic i am writing where sofia thinks she is a bad person because of the amulet

"Mr. Cedric...?"

The workshop's door gently creaked open. The little visitor by now was so accustomed to this place that she knew exactly which cobblestones would wiggle beneath her feet and which would not. She approached Cedric, her dearest mentor and friend, and with little trembling hands, she held out the amulet.

Cedric was confused. He lowered his wand and turned to face Sofia. He could not bear to look down at the amulet when her gentle face was so sorrowful.

"Princess Sofia? What's the matter?" he asked, "Is the amulet broken? Do you need me to fix it for you?"

Sofia shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut and holding her hands out farther from herself. The amulet gleamed right in front of Cedric. A few years ago, this would have been a dream come true for him. But now, the necklace was only a necklace, and his dear little friend was hurting. Something needed to be done.

"I'm not taking the amulet until you tell me what's wrong," Cedric said with tenderness that surprised himself.

So, Sofia sat down. Since she had come to visit so often, Cedric had conjured up a little wooden chair that looked just like his own. She sat in it and brought her knees to her chest, hugging them tightly. Her bare neck felt strange.

"Mr. Cedric?" Sofia asked quietly, "Why do people act good or bad?"

Cedric was astonished by the question. He scrambled to come up with an answer that might satisfy her.

"I suppose everybody has different reasons," he floundered pathetically, "I'm really not sure, Sofia. That's something that I thought you would know more about than me."

"That's just the thing," Sofia whispered, her voice teeming with misery. "I don't know more about it than you, or anybody else! I don't know anything about how to be good or bad!"

Cedric put his hands on top of Sofia's, which were clasped tightly around the amulet. Power hummed from it, as if to warn Cedric of something.

"But how can you say that?" Cedric asked, "You do more good deeds than anybody I've ever met. You're always running around helping people or giving things away instead of keeping them for yourself or showing people how to be good. I can't think of anybody in Enchancia who isn't living a better life because of something you have done for them."

"But I haven't done anything!" Sofia protested, and she clutched the amulet tighter. "The amulet has. You know just as well as I do that the amulet rewards me when I do something good and punishes me when I do something bad. The amulet guides me towards people who need my help. It helps me talk to animals, so that way, I know how to help them. If I had never gotten the amulet, would I be any good at all?"

Cedric did not know what to say. But something must be said. So, he spoke.

"I've never thought of it like that," he said slowly, "The amulet chose you because you're already good, Sofia. I'm sure it wouldn't go to all the trouble to make somebody bad less bad when it could just help somebody good act more good than they already are."

Sofia chewed on her lip, resting her chin upon her knees.

"That's not the point, Mr. Cedric," she said, "The point is that everybody thinks I'm so good. Last week, at my birthday, it was all anybody could talk about. Amber is going to be a queen, and everybody talks about how responsible and smart she is. James is going to be a knight, and people talk all the time about how he's so brave and ready to lend a hand. At my birthday, nobody would stop telling me about how kind and good and special I am. They kept saying that I would be a perfect diplomat, and that I could solve any problem."

"I don't understand," Cedric confessed, "Aren't those good things? Aren't you happy to hear such things about yourself?"

"Not when they aren't true," Sofia whispered, squirming in her seat. "Amber is responsible and smart because that's who she is. She doesn't have a magical amulet giving her magic powers when she does something queenly. That's not like me. How would you feel if somebody praised you for something that you didn't do yourself? Anybody with this amulet would act as good as I do. I'm just...something that amulet speaks through."

"That is not true!" Cedric interrupted, "You aren't some soulless vessel, Sofia!"

"I am," Sofia mumbled miserably, "And I know that if I didn't have the amulet punishing me whenever I did bad things, I would do bad things more often. I don't always like being good. And if I don't actually like being good, doesn't that make me bad?"

(TO BE CONTINUED)

(please let me know if i can improve in any way as a writer! i've never published a fanfiction for stf before so i know i have a lot to improve upon.)

[oisin-the-first]

i used to write so much but i feel like i lost my spark! i’m going to try posting my writing on here more often, so that i can practice and get better again. my writing now just doesn’t feel quite right, so i’ll practice to regain my old abilities!

probably will be mostly sofia the first fanfiction and tenma siblings fanfiction.

[qifreigen]

they're also known as the separation anxiety siblings

[oisin-the-first]

i used to sort of hate how the sofia the first fandom is so fixated on cedric but now that i've started writing fanfictions where he is sofia's father/older brother figure, i get the hype now. he is a fascinating character to write about and he and sofia are such a cute little found family.

[timetravalor]

welcome back princess sofia!!!!

[oisin-the-first]

i know tsukasa and saki's hair is naturally blond with pink tips, but wouldn't it be so cute if they kool-aid dyed their tips pink together so they could match?

i could see it as either saki coming up with it when tsukasa one day laments about how he wished he stood out more in a crowd. i could also see it as tsukasa coming up with it as a way to cheer saki up after she expresses nervousness about attending high school for the first time.

[oisin-the-first]

would the fandom get mad at me if i drew/wrote sofia as a brown girl? i know she’s white in the canon series but i have a few reasons why i headcanon sofia as brown:

1) i find it odd that the show decided not to make sofia look anything like miranda. like she looks more like roland than miranda. i feel like the representation of the family being a stepfamily would have been so much more impactful if sofia actually looked really different from her non-biological family.

2) as previously stated sofia looks a lot like roland despite not being related to him. and that can be confusing. despite the literal theme song, both my best friend and my sister forgot that sofia isn’t biologically related to roland. it was just an odd design choice by the producers.

3) representation is fun! and headcanons are fun! and it’s not like i’m changing canon or pushing it onto other people it’s just what i personally like to see and write about.

4) i could also see there being an interesting additional layer to sofia not being born a princess, the sort of issue of “well i don’t look like amber, i dont look like a princess”. and so she’d learn by going to royal prep and seeing all the different princesses and how they’re all beautiful in their own way that anybody can look any way and still be a princess! a valuable lesson for little brown girls who think they don’t look enough “like a princess”.

5) why not?

does anybody else feel this way about changing sofia’s design in fan works? please let me know!

[a-lilac-lyric]

No one can speak on behalf of the entire fandom, but I for one think that this is a great idea! I think all your reasons are sound and even if you had no reason except for “I just want to draw her like this” I think that would be a good enough reason on its own, especially when the original series had a limited number of people of colour who had significant screen time.

[oisin-the-first]

you’re absolutely right actually, thank you so much for your encouragement and kindness!

i guess i was just curious about what the fandom as a whole thinks. i’ve been in some very racist fandoms in the past and i figured i might as well figure out what im getting into before changing what’s canon.

[oisin-the-first]

would the fandom get mad at me if i drew/wrote sofia as a brown girl? i know she’s white in the canon series but i have a few reasons why i headcanon sofia as brown:

1) i find it odd that the show decided not to make sofia look anything like miranda. like she looks more like roland than miranda. i feel like the representation of the family being a stepfamily would have been so much more impactful if sofia actually looked really different from her non-biological family.

2) as previously stated sofia looks a lot like roland despite not being related to him. and that can be confusing. despite the literal theme song, both my best friend and my sister forgot that sofia isn’t biologically related to roland. it was just an odd design choice by the producers.

3) representation is fun! and headcanons are fun! and it’s not like i’m changing canon or pushing it onto other people it’s just what i personally like to see and write about.

4) i could also see there being an interesting additional layer to sofia not being born a princess, the sort of issue of “well i don’t look like amber, i dont look like a princess”. and so she’d learn by going to royal prep and seeing all the different princesses and how they’re all beautiful in their own way that anybody can look any way and still be a princess! a valuable lesson for little brown girls who think they don’t look enough “like a princess”.

5) why not?

does anybody else feel this way about changing sofia’s design in fan works? please let me know!

[a-lilac-lyric]

No one can speak on behalf of the entire fandom, but I for one think that this is a great idea! I think all your reasons are sound and even if you had no reason except for “I just want to draw her like this” I think that would be a good enough reason on its own, especially when the original series had a limited number of people of colour who had significant screen time.

[ushsblog]

I also really like the idea of a brown-skinned Sofia, nothing more to add here really. ¡Te amamos Sofía morena!

But this reminded me of a discussion that happened years ago, I think, when the series was about to premiere, and for some reason (I don't remember, I wasn't old enough to find out and I read about it later) it was understood that Sofia would be Disney's first "Latin princess" and people (latinos mainly) were tremendously disappointed that she was a white girl with blue eyes. It was said that Miranda looked more latina in her appearance than Sofia herself.

"Disney is launching a new princess, Sofia the First. It will be a new movie and television series. The protagonist will be the first latin princess, but it has caused great controversy."

Although Latin America is actually very diverse, and of course there are white latin americans, it would have been really interesting to see a Sofia with more hispanic features.

[oisin-the-first]

this is fascinating! i had no idea that sofia was marketed as a latin princess! while yes sure there are white latina people, it feels very disingenuous to give her all european features. no curly hair, aryan eyes, an extremely petite frame…it honestly just feels like she is another white girl. and she never even talks about being latina. what’s the point of representation if nobody knows that it is representation?

i would personally make her filipino because that’s what i am and there is so little filipino representation in media, but hell yeah for latina sofia as well!!

[oisin-the-first]

would the fandom get mad at me if i drew/wrote sofia as a brown girl? i know she’s white in the canon series but i have a few reasons why i headcanon sofia as brown:

1) i find it odd that the show decided not to make sofia look anything like miranda. like she looks more like roland than miranda. i feel like the representation of the family being a stepfamily would have been so much more impactful if sofia actually looked really different from her non-biological family.

2) as previously stated sofia looks a lot like roland despite not being related to him. and that can be confusing. despite the literal theme song, both my best friend and my sister forgot that sofia isn’t biologically related to roland. it was just an odd design choice by the producers.

3) representation is fun! and headcanons are fun! and it’s not like i’m changing canon or pushing it onto other people it’s just what i personally like to see and write about.

4) i could also see there being an interesting additional layer to sofia not being born a princess, the sort of issue of “well i don’t look like amber, i dont look like a princess”. and so she’d learn by going to royal prep and seeing all the different princesses and how they’re all beautiful in their own way that anybody can look any way and still be a princess! a valuable lesson for little brown girls who think they don’t look enough “like a princess”.

5) why not?

does anybody else feel this way about changing sofia’s design in fan works? please let me know!